A few soldiers rush forward to catch him, and he tries to shake them off but he doesn’t have the leverage. He’s downone arm and one leg and they grapple with him, dragging him away from me, muttering apologies under their breaths. He doesn’t take this well.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” he shouts at Warner, still struggling. “Juliette is going to kill you.”
Warner goes still, his face impassive, and yet I see it: a single moment of uncertainty, flashing in and out of his eyes.
A weakness, noted.
“Was it worth it?” James is saying. “She’s going to be so pissed at you when she finds out you shot me—”
“Shut up,” Warner says, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You’ll be fine.”
“What are you going to do to her?” James says, still fighting the soldiers restraining him, and I realize he’s asking about me.
I catch a glimpse of his eyes—wild and angry—just before Warner turns the heat of his gaze in my direction, bearing no markers of his momentary uncertainty.
My heart is pounding badly in my chest.
“Warner, listen to me,” James is saying, sounding panicked. “I know you’re mad. I know I fucked up, okay? I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I did this all wrong—”
Warner takes a step toward me.
I have no idea how I’m still standing. Pain has consumed me so completely that I’m almost looking forward to death.
“—but you can’t kill her. We need her. She was trying to get home because there’s something bigger going on. She was sent here for a reason. She told me we only haveseven weeks before it’s too late—”
Warner and I stiffen at the same time.
We both look up at James.
Warner’s eyes narrow with a new intensity. Not anger. It looks more like awareness.
My eyes, on the other hand, are bright with fear.
“You know I’m telling the truth,” James says to his brother. “You know I’d never lie about something like this. I want to keep our world safe just as much as you do. Rosabelle’s been trying to fix things on her own, but if we work together—”
“No,” I gasp, the word leaving my lips before I’ve had a chance to consider it. “James—”
“What do you mean,no?” he says, turning to me. “Would you really rather die than work together?”
“I—I don’t—”
I can’t think.
Right now, I can’t process much beyond the pain devouring my body. I need time to gather my thoughts. To set down my head.
I don’t understand what James is suggesting.
Ark officials would never forge a faithful alliance with a known adversary. The Reestablishment doesn’t offer second chances to its enemies; this is not an avenue I’m familiar with. All spies who enter the island are immediately executed, or else viciously tortured and manipulated for information and then, executed.
I would know. The executions were my job.
I glimpse Warner’s face, the look of concentrated interest in his eyes.
I don’t like it.
I don’t want a new master.
“C’mon, Rosabelle,” James says angrily. “If you die, you’re sentencing us all to death. Is that really what you want?”
